A Hero Comes Home
by SelkieShore
Summary: First part of a very-slightly AU sequel, introducing a new baddy who will become Campion's enemy for the leadership of Efrafa. Mainly book-verse, though the way I see Campion is probably influenced more than a bit by his TV characterisation. So I'm in love with a rabbit, sue me. ... oh yeah, and Moss is in it, too.
1. Chapter 1

Campion, Mr Adams tells us, was close to a complete collapse by the time he led his handful of survivors into Efrafa. In fact, and difficult though it may be to believe, the great soldier was nearly _tharn_.

All rabbits can run, and many rabbits can fight. But any rabbit, if he is driven hard enough, will reach a point where he is mentally not capable of either. His wits desert him, and he simply crouches, transfixed and shivering, and waits for the stoat to leap, the farmer's gun to bark. This is the condition known as _tharn_, and it is usually caused by fear. In Campion's case, perhaps a more accurate word would have been "despair." Despair, and sheer, all-consuming exhaustion.

It was two full days since he had rallied what was left of the army from its unthinkable defeat on Watership Down. Two days and one appalling night, during which his nerves had been stretched to their limit : cajoling, chivvying, trying desperately to inspire as the General would have inspired his tattered survivors... Ranging ahead to scout for danger, dashing back to the tail of the limping column to harry the stragglers - so that he covered four times the distance of any rabbit under his command... Cuffing down the suicidal mutiny which erupted in the false dawn of the second day, when they had wanted to stop and rest... Himself half maddened by the smell of their blood, stricken with guilt as well as horror as one by one they were picked off.

For the elil, the rabbits' Thousand Enemies, had got the wind of the retreat, and their losses, to stoats and foxes, buzzards and farmyard cats, had been relentless. Of the nearly thirty elite officers and rabbits who had set out under the General's command in the glorious "Great Patrol", Campion had brought six home.


	2. Chapter 2

They tottered in past the sentries in the late golden sunlight of a summer's evening and lay where they fell, their flanks heaving. Few saw them arrive. The sentries, themselves Campion-trained, had stamped a General Alert long before the survivors came in view, and the grazing rabbits of the evening "Mark" had vanished into their holes with well-drilled Efrafan efficiency.

Corporal Moss immediately sent a patrol to back-track the arrivals and establish what was chasing them. A few quick, professional glances reassured him that the entrance holes remained properly concealed. A word dispatched a runner to alert the Council. Only then did Moss hop warily into the open and nuzzle at Campion's side.

"Hold up, Sir," he said. And Campion, hearing him faintly beneath the roaring in his ears, knew that they had made it. They were home. And he could lie here and die in the sunshine while Moss, as sturdy a non-com as any Captain of Owsla could wish for, would take care of everything.

A moment later he had rejected that thought absolutely. Captain Campion had been kicking the Black Rabbit of death in the teeth as he stayed one hop ahead since the day he was weaned. He lifted his head and touched noses with Moss.

"Very good, Corporal. Get this rabble below ground before they attract elil." A group of Councillors had joined them, noses twitching nervously as they took in the scene. "That one -" Councillor Feverfew indicated the most grievously injured amongst the survivors, a young buck with a sprained hip, "you had better finish yourself."

"Make sure you leave him a decent distance out beyond the picquets," said old Mustard. He peered short-sightedly at the rabbits now being roused and bullied into the warren by Moss's owsla. "Smell like a bunch of damn' deserters to me," he observed. "You - Campion! Call yourself an Owsla officer? Pull yourself together and report. Why aren't you with the army?"

"We... are the army, you old fool," panted Campion.


	3. Chapter 3

The lame rabbit's laboured breathing was suddenly very loud in the silence. From several fields away came the song of an evening blackbird. Then Mustard raised a paw, claws extended, to strike - and Corporal Moss placed himself squarely between his officer and the blow. He was growling.

"Corporal Moss," Feverfew said gently. Moss found his eyes drawn, despite himself, to the Councillor's hypnotic gaze. He had never spoken with Feverfew before. But he knew him, as did everyone in Efrafa, by reputation.

Councillor Feverfew was white - not a true albino, for his eyes, far from being pink and short-sighted, were of the palest and most piercing blue imaginable - and in the normal Efrafan way of doing things he would have been killed at birth. But Woundwort had spared him, recognising something, perhaps, in the squirming, malevolent scrap of fur which clawed and bit at its litter-siblings with baby teeth. And in a short time he had become one of the General's few favourites. He was young for his Council rank and, unusually, had never served in the Owsla. Nevertheless, when he spoke both Mustard and Moss, older and stronger than he, deferred to the soft voice and begrudgingly backed down. Mustard lowered his paw.

"You have your orders," Feverfew told Moss. And Moss, who was the bravest of rabbits, who had not liked that order when it was given, and liked Mustard telling him how to carry it out even less, who was fit to turn his ears inside out at the thought of leaving Captain Campion half-fainting and helpless before these two... Moss hesitated almost a full three seconds while the blackbird sang, then ducked his chin to the ground in salute and bounded away.

Feverfew waited until he was out of ear-shot. He felt excited, sensing something close at hand like the smell of carrots lying on a path. In a moment he would be around the corner and able to see what it was, and then all he would have to do to take it would be to stretch out his neck...

"What happened, Captain?" he asked.

"We were routed." Campion spoke low, exhaustion dragging at his voice. "There was a dog. Most of us - most of us broke, Sir. I'm sorry. I... tried to bring them home."

He was greeted with a numb silence. Council or no, not a rabbit among them had thought to hear such a report from an Efrafan officer. Their warren was all-powerful, their Owsla invincible, Campion himself a hero second only to the General in popular esteem. What he was saying was beyond their understanding. Those able to grasp that the defeat had happened, at first felt nothing beyond an outraged betrayal, and contempt for its survivors. Then slowly, rabbit by rabbit, they began to sniff at the implications.

Feverfew could have capered like a hare in the Spring to watch them. To him at least it was obvious. A general had led the attack. It had been left to a captain to salvage the retreat. But the Council were uncomfortable, entertaining thoughts it was treason to think. One of two of them were already scuffling in the dust with their forefeet, as if they would have liked to get underground.

In the end it was Stonecrop, that most level-headed of veterans, who asked the question. "Where's Woundwort?"

"The General - " but Campion couldn't say it. If some of the Council were halfway _tharn_ at the prospect of hearing the news, how much worse was it to be the one delivering it. Added to which, Campion was spent. He was trembling, showing the whites of his eyes, and after a moment he fell back, coward-like, on the rabbits' most common euphemism for death. "The General stopped running," he said steadily. And then, duty done, Campion passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

"That's a damned lie!" Councillor Mustard aimed a kick which this time connected, although Campion never felt it. But neither his tone nor the blow carried conviction.

No-one else moved. However much they might plot and skirmish amongst themselves, the Council's loyalty was unquestioned, their feelings for Woundwort, tough as they were, bordered on worship. They were stunned rather than grief-stricken, as they would have been if the sun had fallen. They were also afraid.

"If my authority goes, where will yours be in half a day?" That was what the General had jeered at his quailing officers in the closing moments of his last fight. It didn't matter that none of the Council had been present, then, to hear him. None of them had ever needed to be told.

Even Feverfew, momentarily, was dismayed - his reaction surprised him - but he recovered with speed. The few seconds before he knew what to say even helped his purpose, as the sense of panic amongst the other councillors spiralled higher. When he spoke, he sounded not just calm but quite offensively matter-of-fact, shocking them out of their terror and fixing their attention on himself in cold sober outrage at his lack of concern.

"I don't see why it's bad that General Woundwort stopped running," he said. "I confess, I find it harder to understand why he was running at all. But then, I am not a military rabbit. Perhaps he was trying to confuse the enemy, or lure them into a trap? Naturally, it must have been a very effective tactic if the General was doing it. In any case, he was running, then he stopped."

"That's not what he meant!" Mustard almost shouted.

Feverfew regarded him blandly. "Really, Councillor? I can't imagine what else can have been meant. The General ran back a short way, stopped to ... re-group? Is that the word? And these - " he allowed his own emotion a brief outlet as he indicated the prone body of Captain Campion, "these traitorous crawling cowards kept running. But even without them to back him up, the General - stopped."

He had their full attention now. Stonecrop was watching him carefully, grimly approving. Mustard and one of two others looked almost as it they believed it.

"The General must have gone off on a solo patrol: a reconnaisance, perhaps, or playing some deeper game. He could be back by morning, or not for several turns of the moon. Or he could be coming through the trees towards us even now. In the meantime I don't deny things will be difficult for us here without him. The General _is_ Efrafa. We must take care not to allow any wild rumours to circulate regarding his absence. The important thing for the warren to understand is that we - the Council - are here to govern in the General's name, and to keep everything running smoothly according to his orders until he gets back."

Before he finished speaking he could smell the relief rolling off them, like a bank of morning mist from a wood. If they had not been so thoroughly agitated before, some of the wiser minds might have wondered just what Feverfew thought his own role would be in an Efrafa ruled by a council of Regents. As it was, they were too glad to have been shown a clear path in front of their noses. Those who could recognise the threat of future snares probably thought they would be strong or clever enough to escape them. Or else they were already planning doomed, feeble snares of their own.

Everyone knew that if they could keep up the fiction of the General's return for perhaps one month, after that time the ordinary, warren rabbits would have forgotten there was ever any other government in Efrafa, except an all-powerful Council ruling in the name of an unseen General - and headed by a strong Chief Councillor. Whoever that might turn out to be.

"What about the Owsla?" asked Stonecrop.

Feverfew fought an impulse to growl. It was a pity about Captain Campion. In so far as the General had ever tolerated such a thing besides himself, Campion was what a human politician might have called the poster boy of the Efrafan regime. He should have died on the retreat. As it was, Corporal Moss and half a dozen more had seen him, dead beat and at the end of his tether, but otherwise unharmed. Nor was Feverfew sure enough of his fellow councillors yet to suggest killing a rabbit who was so obviously one of his own main rivals for the Owsla's loyalty.

"The Owsla," he said, more sharply than he intended, "have not lived up to the standards expected of them. In due course we should conduct a full investigation - rout out the bad officers, review the training procedures. In the meantime, naturally, Captain Campion is under arrest for desertion. He's to be closely guarded - and not by Corporal Moss. Find someone who's never served with him. And make sure he speaks to no-one. No-one," Feverfew emphasized. "There may well be more serious charges."

For a moment that puzzled them. Under normal circumstances, desertion from Efrafa carried a death penalty. No-one could imagine what could be worse than deserting the General himself, in the face of the enemy, and taking your patrol with you.

"A rabbit who can imagine defeat can plot a defeat," said Feverfew. "I intend we make it an Act of Treason for anyone to spread lies claiming Efrafan rabbits retreated from Watership Down. It is Treason to deny the truth of General Woundwort's victory. The General is always victorious. In everything he does he is both right and successful, and to suggest or even hint otherwise is Treason. And since the Council were appointed by the General it must also be Treason to hint that _they_ are not right and successful."

Far away down the bridle path he could just make out the forlorn figures of Corporal Moss and two others half-dragging, half-bullying the condemned rabbit to his execution ground beyond the borders. It was a beautiful evening.

"And this," thought Feverfew, "is what it feels like to fly."

Over everything, the blackbird sang.


End file.
